


Rotten to the Core

by spero8022



Category: Once Upon a Time (TV)
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-08-02
Updated: 2020-08-02
Packaged: 2021-03-06 03:06:47
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 522
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/25666399
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/spero8022/pseuds/spero8022
Summary: A short drabble | Regina Mills gets ready for work while thinking about her life thus far as mayor, as a mom, and as Emma Swan's new rival.
Comments: 2
Kudos: 3





	Rotten to the Core

**Author's Note:**

> Hi ao3! I'm so new to writing fanfiction and I can't wait to get started (and get better!) I've loved reading fanfiction for decades, and lately I've begun to appreciate the craft so much more. I admire every author who I've read who can build such a strong, consistent world within their works and excel at staying true to character personalities while crafting their own stories. I hope I get there one day. This is a short piece that I wrote for a challenge my friends gave me (500 words on a Once Upon a Time fanfic). We loved watching OUAT together throughout college, and we turned it into a weekly routine (we also loved hating on the eventual trainwreck that were the later seasons). Hope you enjoy this short fic!

Sometimes, Regina hated being mayor.

It was all part of her grand curse, a spell to put her in a position of power, lording over residents of spellbound fairy tale characters. But it came with some drawbacks. A peaceful village couldn't exist without a system of good and evil. And a mayor couldn't rule a village without consistently being good.

Regina sighed as she examined herself in the mirror. Her work outfit seemed conservative enough. She pursed her lips, then gently tugged the front her blouse, just enough for some EVIL CLEAVAGE. Better, she thought wryly.

Making her way to Henry's room, she once again chided herself for casting a curse without fully considering the cost. Henry was a good kid, and a bright one. Regina couldn't be more proud of the young man he was becoming. But between his lofty ideals and the mayoral duties, Regina was starting to crumble under the weight of expectations to do good. That wasn't in her nature. All she'd ever known was how to use magic to get what she wanted, others be damned. Playing nice wasn't in her book.

But Henry had run away once when she had let her old self show a little. She couldn't risk that again. As she carefully rearranged Henry's blanket over his sleeping form, she knew that there wasn't anything she'd trade him for. Not even a tiny harmless spell to get back at Granny's for adding a little cayenne pepper to her morning coffee last week. She rolled her eyes. Her coffee had better be perfect today.

As she left her house and began her walk to the mayor's office downtown, she noticed a parked yellow buggy across the road and a young blonde woman waiting on the curb. Emma Swan. Regina rolled her eyes again. To think that Henry would actually bring his birth mother into her town, an outsider of all people. It rattled her how intensely Emma seemed to fixate on Henry, and infuriated her at the same time. Henry wasn't Emma's son, he was hers! Regina ground her heels into the asphalt and gave Emma a steely glare. "I'm the one who raised him," she thought.

If there wasn't so much pressure on her to play nice and do good, Regina would have snapped her fingers and disembodied the pathetic creature already, or better yet, sent her into another world where she would know only shame and humiliation. Now that was a nice thought.

Amid her daydream, Regina strode down Main Street with a harsh stride, filled with purpose. This was her town. The rules were her own. Squeaky clean image aside, she had everything she ever wanted, and more. As she entered her office, furnished completely with marble and iron embellishments, she smiled to herself. This was her throne room, after all. Today, she would think of new ways to drive Emma Swan out of town for good. It would be just the tiny bit of evil she needed to stay satisfied with the life she created for herself. It was enough, for someone who was so good at being so bad.


End file.
